


pass the test and (not) diminish

by Runespoor



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Blood Magic, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, being polite never hurts, discussions of power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 20:40:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17453924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: Her friends think her naïve, Merrill knows, for listening to a spirit’s whispers and spilling her blood to fuel her magic.





	pass the test and (not) diminish

**Author's Note:**

> _“I passed the test”, she said. “I will diminish, and go into the West and remain Galadriel.”_ \- _The Lord of the Rings_

Her friends think her naïve, Merrill knows, for listening to a spirit’s whispers and spilling her blood to fuel her magic. 

Fenris, who doesn’t count himself as her friend but instead tolerates her for the sake of the friend they have in common and doesn’t think her _ignorant_ so much as _selfish_ and _power-hungry_ , like all mages, recoils every time she slices her skin open and red mist spills around her. Out of respect for everything he’s too private to say about his former master’s use of him and his blood and blood upon him, she tries to keep the tendrils of her magic curling away from him.

“ _You could prove them wrong,_ ” the spirit suggests in her sleep; its presence is smothered by the distance and its prison’s barriers, less empathetic impressions than far-away echoes, easy to tell apart from her own mind, but her dreams shift in low-key fantasies of Aveline and Fenris and Anders celebrating her and exclaiming she was right, affection in Aveline’s eyes and wonder in Anders’ voice and respect in Fenris’ nod: a close cousin to her dreams of her clan admitting they were wrong and asking her back. “ _It won’t be easy, but when has that ever stopped you? It would be worth it; I could show you how._ ”

“That’s very kind,” Merrill answers, walking back the dream images of Aveline and Anders and Fenris to her hovel’s door – they are as out of place in her home without Hawke to lead them as the air of contentment on Fenris’ and Anders’ face, which strikes her as unfairly sad – and waving them goodbye, “but it doesn’t matter. Thank you for the offer! But it’s, well, I have rather more important to focus on, now don’t I?”

“ _You know where to find me, should you change your mind_ ,” the spirit reminds her, and her dreams shift, again, when it removes itself from her slumber.

The next day, they’re fighting slavers (Fenris is there, of course; with a scowl that had nothing to do with her), and she opens her vein and lets the power flow: better to be thought stupid than prove it by not using power she needs.


End file.
